


Want-Need-Release

by athena_crikey



Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: Dubious Consent, Other, PWP, Tentacle Sex, magical au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-19
Updated: 2017-04-23
Packaged: 2018-10-20 18:45:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10668597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/athena_crikey/pseuds/athena_crikey
Summary: He becomes trapped in the cycle of want – need – release, repeating it over and over, until he feels he’s never done anything else but be pleasured.





	1. Part 1

Patrolling the vaults under the Bodleian with a torch and an iron knife, Morse feels more like a newly-sworn-in PC than an experienced detective. It would have been more politically astute to have assigned Strange to the case – if it _is_ a case – and spared his own time for something more befitting of a detective; that’s doubtless what any of the other CID members would have done in his place. But it was he who turned up the lead, and he who Thursday authorized to look into it. 

Black Magic in the Bodleian. It sounds more like a novel than a case, albeit one Morse certainly wouldn’t read. But ever since the relaxing of the wards twenty years ago and the influx of magic into mainstream life, reports of supernatural mischief warrant just as much investigation as their mundane counterparts. And the Bodleian feels like familiar territory – what Thursday would call his manor, what Morse thinks of as home. 

A piece of shattered stone crunches under his shoe; he looks down briefly, then up again, along the long line of his torchlight. He takes a breath, willing his heart to slow, and keeps walking. 

The Bodleian’s stacks reach down several stories below ground, rows upon rows of metal shelves filled with dusty books and journals, frequented by students and professors turning up source material for their classes. Below them are the vaults, the very lowest foundation of Oxford, stone-walled rooms that to Morse’s mind resemble ancient tombs, the floors cold flagstaff. The ceilings are vaulted, supported here and there by wide pillars with mounted metal sconces, relics of a day when the vaults were actively used by practitioners in secret. 

Today there’s no cause for practicing magic in secret – not the legal sort. And thus his investigation. And thus the knife. 

In the past month three people have wound up in the Radcliffe Infirmary suffering from exhaustion, all three dropped off anonymously on the doorstep like unwanted infants. None of them has been willing to give a statement as to the activities that led to their hospitalization. Further investigation showed that all three were Oxford students, all with access to the Bodleian, and all studying the magical arts. It wasn’t until he found a corresponding appointment in two of their diaries, however, that he put the pieces together. 

In the distance something creaks; it could just be the old building settling. Or it could be something else. He tightens his grip on his knife and continues creeping along. He’s sure that if he finds anything, it will be the students. Almost certainly not a threat to a police officer – Thursday let him come alone, after all. 

Almost certainly nothing to worry about.

Morse steps on something soft and squishy. Frowning, he looks down. His foot skids out from under him, sharply, and he falls, torch skittering away. He strikes his head as he lands, and everything goes dark.

  
***

He feels warm and relaxed, languid as a snake in the sun, soaking up comfort. Like he’s floating in honey, smooth and sweet and all-enveloping. He can feel his naked legs brushing against the rough stone floor but he’s not worried about his nakedness, nor concerned by the heavy dampness that’s spread over his ankles and shins.

 _Hello_ , chuckles a low voice in his mind – it feels like velvet against his skin, running over him smoothly but with just enough of an edge to make him shiver in anticipation. _You’re a long way from home._

Which is strange, because Oxford is his home. 

_Is it? I thought_ this _was_ , says the voice, and as though a reel had been switched on in the cinema, a series of pictures run through his head: A lonely grey home firmly separated from the road by a thick hedge / a tiny bedroom devoid of personality save for a pile of books on the bedside table / a church grave standing alone in the snow. 

Morse tries to turn over and finds his body is too heavy, or his will too weak. He tries to speak; his tongue is thick and ungainly in his mouth, as though he were drunk – drunk on what? he thinks, frowning in perplexity.

 _On me_ , answers the voice. 

“And who are you?” he manages to bite out, words awkward and over-emphasized. 

_It would take far more time than we have to tell you. I am here – and for now, you are mine. That is enough._

“Yours,” he says, puzzled but not afraid – how could he be afraid here when he feels so safe, so at peace. As though he’s rocking softly on the river, lying in a punt staring at the stars. “How –” he begins, and gets no further. 

Something long and warmly wet is sliding up his leg. He looks down and in the shadows can only see darkness; the torch is illuminating a long hallway somewhere behind his head and offers no help to him. The touch is slick and damp, its surface soft and giving as it climbs higher, past his knee and to his thigh. Like the tentacle of an octopus, muscular and strong but still with give to it. 

He’s starting to feel strange. There’s a pit forming in his stomach, a sense of hollow emptiness that’s uncomfortable. Shivers run down his spine and he twists over the stone, legs opening as the soft touch climbing him pushes at his inner thigh. 

_Very good_ , says the voice approvingly, and Morse rolls his head to try to see who’s talking, how this voice is in his head but not his ears. But there’s only the endless darkness of the vaults, and the sound of his own breathing. It’s coming faster now, his heart beginning to race. He’s hungry, he realises, his skin tingling with want – to be touched, to be licked / tongued / bitten. He can feel his cock beginning to harden, blood coursing through him with eager desire.

The touch on his leg snakes higher, skimming over naked skin, growing slowly closer, closer and he wants it, wants the damp tentacle to circle his bollocks, to stroke his swollen prick – and God it’s moving so slow. The wait is agonizing, aching; he throws his head back and tries to suck in the air his lungs are begging for but all he knows is the burning want. He’s never had it so bad before, never felt such intense arousal before even being touched, before beginning to make love. 

_It’s my gift to you_ , whispers the voice, close and coveting, wrapping itself around his mind as surely as the thick tentacle is encircling his leg. _Do you like it?_

Morse moans, fingers scrabbling over the purchaseless flagstones, nails scraping over hard rock. He needs to be touched, _needs_ it, breath coming hoarse and desperate through his open mouth. Please, he thinks, patience burned to ashes by the searing desire, _please!_

The voice in his head laughs pleasantly, pleased by his plea. 

The first touch of the wet tip against his balls makes him shiver. The second makes him scream. He hears his ragged voice echoing through the empty chambers; it sounds broken, sounds _flayed_. 

He feels no shame, not the least bit self-conscious about it. All he knows is the coursing lust, setting him alight as though it were petrol in his veins rather than blood and the wet touch a match. It curls against him, exerting pressure against his bollocks, fondling him gently. 

A second touch strokes against his other leg, begins sliding up from another angle. With its touch his stomach grows even emptier, his desire stronger, as though turned up on a radio dial. He starts shaking, and even the extension of the tentacle to the base of his cock isn’t enough to stop it.

 _Hungry, aren’t we?_ asks the voice coyly, as the first tentacle plays up and over his cock, stroking him slowly. It’s a tease, offering a grain of rice when he needs a meal, giving him only enough of what he desires to fan the flames. _Open yourself to me. Let me inside._

Morse can’t kick his legs open; there’s something wrapped around his ankles. He spreads his knees instead; a twinge of discomfort permeates the thick haze of safety and arousal, but he ignores it. The second tentacle slithers down his inner thigh, bearing lower than the first. Its inquisitive tip reaches his cheeks and presses up, pushing between them. Morse takes a breath, which proves to be a mistake because when the tip penetrates him he has no room left for more air. 

“Christ,” he moans, head rolling against the stone, as the slick tentacle pushes its way inside him, damp softness sliding deliciously over the ring of muscle. He can feel it pressing deeper, deeper, until, “ _Christ_ ,” he yells, this time, back arching as it finds his prostate and begins stroking – soft at first, then harder, harder, making him sweat and moan and twist. The first tentacle is moving up and down against his cock, sliding slick and strong against him. Together it’s too much, far too much, he’s begging – he’s weeping – he doesn’t know what he needs anymore because there’s _so much need_ and he’s such a tiny vessel.

The tentacle in his arse is knotting itself up, pushing a thicker and thicker stock into him, rutting its twisted length in and out of him while inside the tip keeps pounding at his sweet spot. He’s panting for breath, lungs begging for air while his arse begs to be pounded, to be taken over and over – it’s so good, and still not good enough, not _near_ enough. 

“Please,” he pants again, voice rough. 

_Please what?_ enquires the voice politely, as though it wasn’t bringing him to pieces. 

“Fuck. Fuck me,” he manages, fingers scraping so hard against the floor he can feel them beginning to be slicked by blood – it doesn’t hurt, nothing hurts, he feels nothing but _so. much. want._

 _With pleasure_ , answers the voice. A third tentacle slicks up to join the second in his arse, this one rubbing along his rim, thickening the mass pounding into him. He makes a broken sound, legs frantically trying to splay wider. His cock is begging to come, the tentacle stroking it wrapped tight and relentless about it.

He’s done – more than done, is undone by the lust that’s filling him till he chokes with it, till he bleeds with it – and he needs – he needs…

He screams again as he comes, the voice praising him in warm velvet tones. 

Afterwards all he can hear is the sound of his own breathing, rough and fractured. He lies on the ground, still deliciously safe and warm, and for the moment sated. He’s never felt so full, so satisfied – he must be glowing with it, luminous in the darkness. 

_And now, again_ , says the voice. 

Morse opens his eyes in confusion, and a moment later feels the first tentacle slithering down his spent cock to slide its tip beneath the head, ease up through the slit and touch him there. He jerks with the sudden surge of arousal, the flare of desire that comes from being touched so intimately. 

_Good_ , praises the voice. _Yes, good. Now: More._

  
***

He has no conception of time passing. He becomes trapped in the cycle of want – need – release, repeating it over and over, until he feels he’s never done anything else but be pleasured. Like Violetta, subsumed by the lust of others. Except it’s his own need that’s driving him, his thirst for pleasure – isn’t it?

 _You’re different than the others_ , the voice tells him, stroking his mind delicately, its influence soft and sweet as spun sugar. 

“Others?” It’s all he can do to pull himself together enough to voice one single word. Inside him, the firm tip of a tentacle pumps against his prostate, pounding wave after wave of pleasure into his brain. 

_They accepted me so easily. You question me. Question what I give you._

He’s too exhausted to scream, simply groans as he orgasms – he’s lost count of how many times it’s been, of how many tentacles are fucking him. Has nearly lost his own true self. But a tiny glimmer of it remains – DC Morse, proclaims a small voice deep in his heart, and he holds onto it.

  
***

_They called me here as a pet_ , the voice tells him in one of the lulls, as the tentacles stroke over his hips, trace the low line of his belly. He’s thoroughly ensnared now, tentacles wrapped about his legs and hips like bindweed, coursing into him at every opportunity. _As though I were a djinn, made to grant wishes. They learned the error of their ways_. It sounds pleased, self-satisfied.

“The hospital,” pants Morse, “those students…”

_They believed me tame. But I stop only when I wish._

The tentacles around him tighten, pulling his legs further apart. Morse tries to draw breath – he’s tired, so tired. 

_You’re not finished yet_ , the voice purrs into his mind, while below he’s pulled open, stretched apart to allow access to a stronger, thicker tentacle. He shudders with pleasure at the sensation of it pushing into him. _Not nearly._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Thursday mops up.


	2. Part 2

The Bodleian cuts a brave silhouette against the darkening sky. When it was constructed its square walls and narrow spires stood for reason in a time of romance, logic in an age of mysticism. It maintained that divide, walked that fine line, until twenty years ago when history diverged; when the shadows were brought out into the light, and instead of vanishing proved substantive, real. As the wards came down the library was revealed not just as a home to logic and reason, but a spawning ground for practitioners hoarding their own stores of knowledge beneath the surface. Two sides of a coin, only one ever visible at once – until this modern era. A time of both science and magic, reason and superstition. 

Since then a generation of curious academics and stone-faced coppers have corrupted the sanctuary that used to sit beneath the foundations of the library, plundered the haven and left it nothing but an empty husk, a relic of the past. Which is why when Morse came to him with a story of Black Magic under the Bodleian, Thursday wrote it off as candles and chalk – students playing at being practitioners. 

That was hours ago now, calls to Morse’s car gone unanswered in the meantime, and a conversation with a page over the phone revealing a record of Morse’s arrival but not his departure. So Thursday’s come out to find his bagman, like a wolf emerging from his den, teeth barred. Standing in front of this immense bastion of academic pursuit with a pistol loaded with iron rounds tucked in the waistband of his trousers and a torch in his pocket, he feels more like a foot soldier about to sack a palace. But he has no misgivings as he pushes open the door – Morse needs to be turned up, and that’s all there is to it.

Inside the library there’s a funereal stillness that’s somehow deeper than that of Cowley library – a darker, thicker hush, the kind of silence centuries of history and wealth buys. He takes a moment to soak in the atmosphere: the carved ceilings, the arched windows, the two-storey high walls covered in books, the soft touch of lamplight gleaming on the buffed wooden floors. Turning away, he flags down a page to take him to the librarian. 

The librarian is an old crab of a man, shuffling along with a bowed back and pinched arthritic hands. He shows Thursday the first flight of stairs down into the stacks, and gives him directions to the door to the vaults, along with a heavy brass key. “Make sure your man returns the one we gave him,” he intones sternly, as he waves Thursday away with a stiff gesture. 

Thursday follows the stairwell down to the lowest level. The door lets out onto a space wider than a gymnasium cluttered by the stacks running as far as the eye can see; the still air smells of must and book-binding materials. The floor here is plain concrete, the ceiling unfinished and criss-crossed by lead and copper pipes. Unlike the shining wooden shelves of the library’s upper floors, the basement stacks are metal shelves, crammed together to house as many rows as possible in the space, so narrow he hardly has room to move between them. Feeling like a sardine, Thursday pushes his way through the seemingly endless rows of books. In the distance there’s the whistling rattle of a radiator. 

He finds the corridor leading to the door to the vaults at last – although there’s dust on the grey floor a path has been beaten through it by people coming and going; clearly Morse isn’t the only one to have been downstairs of late. The door is heavy metal riveted to the wall; the brass key fits into it like a hand in a glove, opening silently. Suspicious, for such an old lock.

There’s a rush of cold air when he opens the door, as though the vaults are exhaling. The space on the other side of the door is pitch black and smells of cold stone and dust. Thursday descends the stone stairs that lead downwards, his footsteps echo in the vast quiet. He’s standing at one edge of an enormous, cavernous space divided up into hallways by stone walls. In the light filtering in from behind his back he can see the ceilings above are made of arched stone coming down to ground in wide pillars to meet uneven stone floors. It puts Thursday in mind of the catacombs he saw when marching through Palermo; the air has the same dead dry smell, the space the same sense of haunting endlessness. Here, at least, there are no corpses lining the walls, no macabre spectacle of death on display. 

From somewhere in the distance comes a soft, hitching cry, cut off abruptly. Thursday stiffens. His hand slips into his pocket and he produces his torch. The click of it turning on sounds inordinately loud in the silence. The long line of buttery light slices through the darkness, illuminating a path forward. 

His other hand pulls his pistol free of his waistband.

He creeps forward with one arm beside the wall, the shuffling of his shoe leather over flagstone almost unbearably loud in the emptiness of the vaults. He passes openings to small square rooms that stand empty, the looming doorways made from carved, smoothed stone like bone – what they once held, he can only guess. 

There’s another keening cry from somewhere off in the darkness, echoing through the abandoned chambers and corridors like a kestrel’s thin call. He speeds his pace, hand tightening on the butt of his pistol. 

He pauses at the end of the corridor, the hallway meeting another at perpendicular angles. Thursday peers out and to the left sees a light lying alone on the floor like a blaze of foxfire. 

The voice cries out again, ragged and broken, and he runs forward, coming around the far corner with his gun raised to shoulder-height, ready to fire. What he sees freezes him to the ground, horrified and aghast. 

The scene is nightmarish, a monstrous distortion of reality and sanity. Emerging from an open doorway like some twisted mess of roots is a creeping body with a texture like tar and dozens of twining tentacles, oozing a viscous clear liquid. They have a dark, visceral sheen in Thursday’s torchlight, disturbing as exhumed entrails. The ends are writhing and pulsing to an unheard heartbeat, moving with the eerie broken rhythm of dead branches reaching against the sky.

Ensnared in the centre of the mess is Morse. He’s entwined up to his waist; in the narrow gaps between the tentacles wrapped tightly about his legs Thursday catches sight of his pale flesh – he’s naked from the waist down. His back is arched, eyes open but glassy, chest rising and falling at a frantic rate. There are long bloody lines on the flagstone beside him, his fingers painted red at the tips, skin torn. 

There’s a strong smell of sweat and come and something else mixed in – something sickly-sweet, like a sugary syrup poured out in pints on the floor. 

“Holy Christ.” Thursday drops his gun – no use shooting something that could from the looks of it easy snap Morse in half – and bends slip his arms under Morse’s, pulling frantically. It’s like taking hold of a body submerged in wet cement; there’s no give. 

“Morse?” Morse’s eyes are dark, wrongly so – there’s no trace of blue except for a foil-thin wrapping around the edge of his irises. There’s no trace of recognition there, no focus. 

Morse makes no answer, writhing in what is clearly pleasure, the _thing_ violating him, stroking against him and up _into_ him and – Thursday’s roving eye catches hold of Morse’s knife lying abandoned on the floor and he scoops it up. He needs to put an end to this, now. 

He holds Morse with one arm while he slashes at the fattest tentacle with the other; it rears back and in his arms Morse screams, trying to pull away. He holds fast and as the tentacles recede, twisting back and away and _out_ – Thursday shudders – he drags Morse in the opposite direction. 

With a wet, slithering sound the thing disappears into the darkness of the chamber; Thursday doesn’t stop, keeps dragging Morse back down the corridor he came from. When he’s far enough away to be sure they’re not being followed, he pauses, lowering Morse to see that he’s lying still in Thursday’s arms, eyes wide and unfocused. His trousers and shorts are down around his ankles, his legs covered in a clear dripping film of God knows what. “Morse? Can you hear me? Morse?”

There’s no answer. 

Cursing Morse as a fool for coming down here alone, and himself as a bigger one for letting him, Thursday hauls the constable up onto his back and heads for the stairs.

  
***

At the stairs, Thursday has to stop. For one, he’s badly out of breath. For another, there’s no way he can carry a man up five flights of stairs. Staff-Sergeant Fred Thursday could have done it, but those years are long behind him.

He slides Morse down off his back and leans him up against the wall, pausing to take stock. The lad isn’t unconscious, but he isn’t present, either. His eyes are open, staring off into the darkness of the vaults; Thursday can’t help but keep looking behind them, as if at any moment the thing might creep up on them – and it might. 

“Oh lad, what did it do to you?” he asks, as though he didn’t know full well, as though he hadn’t _seen_ it taking his bagman. “Morse?” he asks, reaching out to shake Morse’s shoulder. Morse is breathing calmly now, and when Thursday raises a hand to feel his pulse it’s steady. “Morse?” he asks again, digging his fingers in deeper to Morse’s shoulder and shaking him harder. 

Morse blinks, head rolling slowly over to stare at Thursday. “Sssir?” he slurs. 

Thursday sighs. “Thank God. Yes, it’s me. I need you to help with the stairs, Morse.”

He’s not leaving the lad down here on his own, not even to fetch help. The way he feels right now, he might never let Morse out of his sight again.

“Mmm,” replies Morse indistinctly. Thursday hitches his trousers up and secures them at his waist with the undone belt; Morse fails to notice. 

“Right. Come on constable, up you come,” he orders in his best drill voice. He pulls Morse’s arm over his shoulder, dragging the young man to his feet. Morse comes up slow as treacle, hanging half-limp from Thursday’s side. “Right, now – the stairs. Come along.”

The trip upstairs is slow and agonizing; Morse trips repeatedly over the stairs, Thursday’s legs and his own feet. Twice he nearly pitches back down the stairwell; only Thursday slamming him into the wall and pinning him there keeps him from toppling backwards. When they finally make it up to the ground floor Morse is standing straighter but still swaying woozily, his head resting against Thursday’s shoulder. 

“Do you have the keys?” demands the librarian, hobbling over. He takes one look at Morse, clearly either drunk, high or blighted, and backs up a step.

“I’m confiscating them for now – are there any others?”

The librarian shakes his head.

“Good. No one’s to go down into the vaults. A team will be sweeping the place tomorrow – the Wytch Squad.”

“What on earth’s down there?” asks the librarian, paling at the name. 

“That’s need to know,” retorts Thursday, and heads for the exit. Morse staggers along with him, humming quietly to himself.

  
***

He can’t take the lad home, not slathered in sweat and come and God knows what else; it’s less the opinions Win would form then the intense awkwardness Morse – already pathetically over-sensitive – would come to harbour for his home, and they neither of them need that. Morse needs to feel safe in his superior’s home; Thursday needs a bagman willing and able to step over the threshold without descending into cringing self-recrimination.

So he takes Morse back to his flat, despite the uneven floorboards and the flights of stairs. Morse sits quietly during the ride over, head cushioned on the inside of the Jag’s door, eyes still over-dilated. When they arrive he comes out meekly when Thursday takes his wrist again, stumbling over the kerb. “Keep up, lad,” implores Thursday in a half-hopeless tone; Morse drops his head against his shoulder. 

The stairs in Morse’s building are wider and better-lit than those of the Bodleian; they make quicker progress up them, stopping a couple of times for Morse to catch his breath. He’s clearly in a bad way, and Thursday has half a mind to take him to hospital, but the lad doesn’t need this in his record. Not if there’s a way around it.

They stop in the hallway while Thursday fumbles in Morse’s pockets looking for his keys; Morse leans into the touch, head rolling back blissfully. Thursday gives him a wary look but fishes the keys out and opens the door, then escorts Morse forcefully inside. 

“Shower. Now,” he says. But when he lets go Morse begins to slip to the floor; he hurriedly grabs Morse by the shoulders and escorts him into the tiny bathroom, putting Morse down on the toilet while he starts the shower. It takes a while to get hot, time Thursday spends pulling Morse’s clothes off him. It’s like trying to undress a mannequin, Morse’s limbs heavy and limp. 

Morse shows no sign of embarrassment at being stripped starkers by his boss – shows no sign of anything, just stares with glassy eyes at the wall. It hurts to see him like this, Morse who prides his intellect and knowledge above all. Morse, who even drunk – even hungover – has a bright glint in his eyes.

Whatever that creature was, as soon as Thursday gets him cleaned up they’re going to get to the bottom of it. And Thursday truly _will_ bring the Wytch Squad down on the thing that did this to him.

Finally Thursday has managed to pull off shirt and vest, shoes and socks. Leaving just his soaking, wretched trousers. 

“Alright, lad. Just going to take these off…” He undoes the belt and slides them down; Morse looks down at him with a kind of innocent curiosity, as though his superior weren’t in the middle of rendering him naked. As he pulls the trousers down some of the thick, gooey liquid gets on his hands; his skin suddenly feels warm, and his worry for Morse begins to fade. What is there to worry about? He feels safe and at ease, no cares or concerns. 

Except his bagman is sitting naked in front of him, shower running in the background. Thursday looks down at his hands, then up at Morse. He grits his teeth and rips the trousers off, flings them away. “Hell,” he curses, and shoves Morse into the shower. 

Under his ill-fitting clothes Morse has a narrow frame, more bone and sinew than muscle, long and lean through lack of care rather than an excess of it. He puts Thursday in mind of the new recruits bolted on to their unit throughout their advancement through North Africa and Italy, thin lanky boys who had yet to develop the muscles and callouses of those who had been marching for months or years. Many of them died before they did.

Thursday shakes his head, turning his mind back to the present. Morse stands obligingly under the stream, hair flat and wet, skin dappled with water. Thursday pulls one of the two towels off the towel rack, strips off his jacket and shirt, and leans in to forcibly wash the slime from Morse’s legs. It runs down the plughole, thick and oily. He finds a cracked bar of yellow soap and chafes it against the towel until it foams, then continues washing Morse clean, all the while forcibly suppressing the instincts telling him that he doesn’t need to act, doesn’t need to do anything, that all is well. 

Morse starts blinking more regularly as he gets down to the lad’s ankles, scrubbing industriously. “Sir?” he says, slowly; Thursday looks up at him, eyes narrowed against the spray of water. “What – I don’t – _sir_ ,” he finishes, suddenly blushing heavily and stepping backwards. He hits the shower wall and falters, hands descending in a belated attempt at protecting his decency. 

Thursday drops the towel on the floor of the shower and stands. “Good. You can finish washing up. Mind you get it all off – that stuff is toxic, whatever it is. Inside and out,” he adds, with a flat face.

Morse just stands there in the shower spray, staring at him. His hair is trailing over his face like a wet spaniel, giving him a helpless, pathetic look. “I don’t understand – what’s happened? Why are you here? _How_ are you here?”

“That’s a yarn for later. Finish washing up,” he repeats, pointing at the towel. Morse slowly bends and picks it up, begins scrubbing himself with it.

Satisfied, Thursday turns to the sink and runs a light stream of water with which to wash off his own hands, scrubbing industriously. 

That done, he strides out into the main room and finds the bottle of whisky on the mantelpiece; he pinches a glass from the kitchenette and splashes some out – he’s swallowed it before he has a chance to contemplate it. The second helping goes down slower, and the third more slowly still. He has a seat at Morse’s rickety table with the glass in hand, fighting to keep from dropping his head into his hands. 

_Drunk, high or blighted_ , he thinks. Well, it’s clear enough which it is – reason enough to call in the Wytch Squad. But by Christ he’ll do some goddamn blighting of his own – he’ll go down there with the bloody Wytch Squad if he has to; he has cause.

The memory of Morse’s broken cry rings in his ear. By God, does he have cause. 

Thursday finishes his drink, darkly wishing he didn’t have a duty to perform tonight. Because right now he feels like getting completely pissed, like emptying the bottle and another besides, like drinking until he forgets the goddamn vaults and everything in them. 

He finishes his third drink and puts the glass down on the table. Morse has been in the shower an awfully long time. Somewhere between irritated and concerned he stands and strides back to the loo.

Morse is sitting on the floor of the shower, legs limp under him, head resting against the tiled wall. Thursday rushes forwards, but when he reaches in to pull at Morse the constable straightens slowly, eyes blinking open. “Sir?”

Christ, the lad’s going to give him a heart attack one of these days. 

“Strewth Morse, this isn’t the place for a nap.”

Morse rolls his head back, squinting into the spray. “So tired,” he says; he puts one hand on the wall as if preparatory to standing, but doesn’t move. Thursday shuts off the water and grabs the clean towel; drapes it over his shoulders and pulls at him.

“Come on. Let’s get you to bed.”

Morse gets to his feet with the lanky awkwardness a new-born foal, keeping one arm on the wall. He lets Thursday dry him off, eyes sliding closed as he stands. Thursday does a cursory job before leading him out to the main room and over to his narrow bed. 

The students, he remembers from Morse’s briefing, had spent a day in hospital recovering from exhaustion. No wonder they’d been behind in admitting what they’d been up to; but it was their silence – and more, their actions – that led Morse to the creature’s doorstep. 

He puts Morse to bed; as soon as his body touches the mattress he rolls onto his side and draws his limbs in, eyes closed. Thursday pulls the blankets over him and takes a seat on the bed beside him.

“Morse?”

Morse makes a soft, wordless sound without opening his eyes, head half-buried in his pillow. 

“Are you alright?”

He makes the same soft sound. Thursday leans over, laying a hand on Morse’s shoulder.

“I need to know you’re alright, lad.”

Morse’s eyes slip open slightly to reveal a sliver of blue. “It wanted me to want it. So it made that happen,” he says. “It didn’t hurt me.” He rolls his head a fraction to the side, meeting Thursday’s eyes. “It didn’t give me a choice,” he says suddenly, as if this is information he feels Thursday needs to know. 

And he does, not because he believed otherwise, but because it seals the creature’s face. “I’ll see it dealt with,” he says, in an earnest tone which belays none of the rage that’s bubbling beneath his skin like boiling wax. “You get a good night’s kip. I’ll run over tomorrow morning to check in on you. Right?”

“Right,” says Morse sleepily, head dropping back.

“Goodnight,” says Thursday, and rises. 

He has the Wytch Squad to call. Together, they need to smite the foundations of the Bodleian. 

END


End file.
